Underwater Rose
by libellule2016
Summary: After six months apart, Edward returns home, but Carlisle, no longer the source of his happiness, feels a deep sense of loss. Set in the period immediately after the Cullens' return to Forks in New Moon, Underwater Rose explores a father's struggles between his yearning for his son's happiness and his anguish in watching that happiness slip further and further out of his control.
1. Prologue

As always, the characters and world belong to Stephenie Meyer, and all errors belong to me.

* * *

 **Prologue**

It has been three weeks since we left Forks, and my son has still not spoken a single word. The profound sadness that filled his eyes when he first returned from his walk with Bella had been heart wrenching, and had haunted me until I realized that it only got worse with each passing day. His crushing melancholy seemed to saturate his darkening irises, spreading like ink through the midnight of his eyes until it overflowed and radiated outward from his body, infecting anyone who found themselves in his wake. He slowly retreated from civilization, closing himself from the world, from me, abandoning his cloak of humanity and slumping, still as stone and just as icy, in the darkest corners of the house where no one dared intrude upon him.

But now, with a cavity in my chest to match Edward's, carved from each day of his agony and my own, I can no longer permit myself to cower in silence and attempt to escape his pain. I have let fear dictate my inaction for far too long, and there is something that I need to say to him. It would make him angry, fiercely so. Venom pools in my mouth involuntarily, anticipating his reaction and preparing to defend myself from a physical attack. He wouldn't – would he? I am not so sure, but as I move toward him, I am careful to make no sound, leaving nothing but my thoughts exposed and hoping that they would reach him and convey the depth of my hurt and love and longing. When I reach him, he is facing me, but his eyes are as vacant as the night that filters through the window into the dark room.

 _Edward._

He does not answer, but turns away from me to face the window, his face pressing so close to the glass that I cannot see his expression reflected off it. But his hands are now clenched into fists, and he trembles slightly.

 _Edward, please. Talk to me._

Tentatively, I reach out to my son and place one hand on his shoulder to steady him. He flinches away, and a different kind of pain spasms through my body. I take my arm back, restraining it with my other hand.

"I'm sorry," Edward apologizes, his voice barely audible. "Please, leave me alone."

 _Edward,_ I begin tentatively, unsure how exactly to begin. He must have detected my reticence, my unease, for he actually looked at me with an expression that resembled curiosity.

"Yes?"

The fact that he answered me is such a surprise to me that I slip, so that instead of uttering any of the hundred ways I'd practiced initiating this conversation, I think – _Edward, son, Bella doesn't deserve you. You're better than that – you deserve someone who actually loves you._

From his blank expression, I can see that he no more contemplated my response than I had been able to foresee his. "What?" he gasps.

I work to suppress the thousand thoughts that have plagued me over the past weeks and that now threaten to resurface; I didn't want to anger him, to chase him away and precipitate our separation. I work my mind to an empty calm before filling it with just one thought – _She let you leave._

"Just one of my century of failures," he replies, hanging his head in shame.

 _It wasn't your fault._

He instantly becomes livid. "I hurt her, Carlisle. Over and over. Each step I took, I was putting her in danger. I couldn't be the man she needed me to be. So don't you dare tell me it isn't my fault. Not after she got hurt, not after she was endangered, and definitely not after she believed me when I said I didn't love her."

"Wait, _what?_ " I say out loud, incredulous. _You told her you didn't love her?_

"It was the only way to make her let me go."

Pain flashes across his face once more at the recollection, but I barely register it, as confusion and disbelief war inside my mind in a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts. Edward had told Bella that he didn't love her?

"What else was I supposed to do?" he countered. "It was the best way for her – the only way for her to move on. I could see that she wasn't going to let go any other way. I had no choice. If she thought I'd moved on, then she might – then she _will_ – move on as well."

Then she will move on as well. His words sweep me back a hundred years, and Esme's teenage face resurfaces in my mind. It had been a single day at the hospital, and yet it had been enough to forge a connection so deep as to be unbreakable by a wedding and fifteen years. Had I not also left her in an ill-fated and futile attempt at saving her? Had I not convinced myself that she would move on and lead a happy life, because that was the only way I could bear to leave?

I have vastly undermined Edward's strength, his resolve. I had been convinced that if it had been so difficult for me after meeting my mate for a few hours, it must be impossible for my son who knew Bella for a full year. Driven by my foolishness, I never entertained the possibility that he would be strong enough to tell such a monstrous lie. Edward continues to speak, responding to my tempestuous thoughts and sending them spinning through my own tortuous past. "I told her I wasn't good for her" – I gently press Esme's shoulders into the hospital bed – "but she wouldn't listen" – but she struggles to sit up, and when she realizes the futility of her struggles, looks me straight in the eye – "I could see it in her eyes, that she wouldn't let me go" – I see in her eyes the same curiosity and admiration as in so many humans, but also something I have never seen before: a burning sincerity, a purity that does not belong in a world so dark – "she was so beautiful, so perfect, so vulnerable and yet so determined" – in those eyes I see my future, a future so full and blossoming for me but so bleak for her – "I had to do it, Carlisle" – and so I tell myself that I have to do it, that I have to tell myself that she would have a better life without me – "I had to tell her I didn't love her" – because, convinced of this fact, I can bear to tear my gaze away from hers – "because this alone gave me the strength to leave" – and disappear from her life.

"I didn't think that she would believe me so quickly," Edward cried. How long had it taken me to convince Esme that I loved her? Months, if not years. I understood perfectly now what I couldn't begin to fathom a hundred years back. How was I supposed to believe that Esme, a creature so gentle, so good, so beautiful, could ever think herself inferior to me? _Me_ , who had abandoned her, who had left her to a disastrous marriage and a close encounter with death. But now, looking at my son, I understand exactly why Bella swallowed his lie so readily. Despite myself, I am relieved. For three weeks, I had thought that Bella simply let my son go, that she didn't love him enough to want him to stay. Now that I know the truth, I know that there is a solution.

 _Edward, son._ I tell him gently. _It is not up to you to decide Bella's future._

"But I have to do everything to protect her. It's called love."

 _No, son._ I correct him. _It's called arrogance._

* * *

Thank you so much for reading! I really love reviews.

Will try to post new chapters every week!


	2. Chapter 1

Of course, the characters and their world belong to Stephenie Meyer, and any errors to me.

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

Nothing can hold such conflicting meanings as does the simple concept of Time. It shapes us. It baits us and it marks us. It slumbers in the crash of waves against rock – it marks its heartbeat in polished river stone. It whispers through the forest – it paints the trees orange and resurrects fallen leaves in a macabre celestial dance. From the beginning, man has tried to conquer Time. He erected sundials, as if to impale cloud and sun and in taming the wildest and most powerful of elements, to capture Time itself. When the grand and majestic failed him, he attempted the subtle – a minute trickle of sand through twin glass domes delicate enough to shatter on impact and – perhaps – delicate enough to cradle that elusive element which enfolds him. And when he bent Earth and Sky to his will but Time continued to defy him, the Universe became his test tube, the stars his canvas, and science recast Time in the role of a Fabric – of an insulator (for the familiar, the beautiful, from the dark, tenantless spaces beyond).

I suppose it's inevitable that we would reach this point, that we would relegate the most frightening and most enigmatic of forces to the mundane role of the comforter. But I must admit that I, myself, cannot help but find great attraction in this conception of time as a fabric. A fabric that stretches around physical, tangible things. Familiar things. The rhythmic tick of the clock. The even swing of the pendulum. The constant orbit of the Earth around the sun. The squeeze and pull of the beating heart. Yes – for me, the fabric of time is most clearly wrapped around a beating heart. It is so fleeting compared to the rest, and yet it is the singular marker of vitality, without which time would be meaningless.

It has been hours since the last tendrils of sun slid from the horizon and yet I can see and sense everything in this darkened living room. I can clearly make out the grand piano – a mausoleum of memories, a thick layer of dust on its closed lid. But I can also picture ivory hands gliding over its ivory keys, and I can hear the music as flawlessly as if it resonated out of the instrument and not a mere compartment of my brain. And I can hear the clock ticking quietly two rooms away, its second-hand labouring along, stuttering, propelled by gears themselves worn by the passage of time. But it, too, is meaningless, for I have no heartbeat to race against it, no urgency to fill the void between the seconds. But it grows louder nonetheless. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Edward. Edward. _Edward._ My son. My Edward – my heartbeat, my fabric, the only narrative of time that holds any significance. In his absence, time lies suspended, marked only in the fluctuation of the emptiness that surrounds me.

But Edward is with Bella now. The pain, conflict and uncertainty of the past six months are over – my son is healed, and he's happy, and he's a mere few miles from me. Soon, he will come home. I should only be feeling relief, but a fiercer, gnawing sensation claws persistently at my chest. It takes me a while to realize that this is a just different kind of pain. When I first caught Edward's scent at the airport after half a year of separation, I was transported back eighty years, to a simpler time when it was just him and me, and laughter that filled the gaps and lingered in his wake. He had been my whole world, my salvation. He solely had been responsible for my eighty years of joy. And for eighty years, I had managed to convince myself that it was reciprocal, that I could keep him sheltered forever, that I would forever mould his happiness with my own hands. All it took was one agonizing second at the airport for my naïve confidence to evaporate completely.

I called out his name in my head repeatedly – _Edward, look at me. Edward, I missed you. Edward, I love you. Edward, you're here. Edward, come to me_ – but he did not look at me. My silent pleas reverberated in my mind, lingering in the tenantless spaces between us, never reaching him. It was as if he couldn't hear me, as if I were dreaming again, having that recurring nightmare of soundless shrieking. When he finally saw me, his vacant eyes stared right through me, seeing a ghost of a shadow where I stood. In my dream, I was now not only voiceless but also invisible, my fingers reaching out and clutching onto air where I so desperately wished to find my son. I wanted to run to him, to erase the pain in his eyes, to cradle him in my arms and kiss away the bruises that rimmed them. But my feet did not move. In my dream, I could not run.

And so I tried again at shouting. _Edward, please. You're home, I'm here for you, whatever you need. I will never let you go. I love you. It's alright. Everything is alright. I care so much about you, Edward. So much more than you understand. No matter what, I will be here. Whenever you need me._ Nothing. I was still making no sound. My son continued to inch toward me, Bella in his arms. His stare was still just as vacant; it was as if I had not spoken. But he was looking at Bella now, and his eyes filled with an unfathomable sadness, the black lines of his pupils puckered like scars across depths that defied all horizons so as to bore into a shadow of himself. I tried again. _Edward, listen to me. Bella loves you. She loved you enough to risk her life for you. One does not do that for someone she doesn't truly love. You're with her now, and you will be forever. She loves you, more than I dared to admit, more than I could ever imagine, more than you know._ That finally did it. My son turned his head to face me, his eyes, animated for the first time in six months, finally looked into mine. At that moment, I felt joy and relief, but I also felt broken.

Now, alone in the house, looking out into a moonless sky aswarm with a canopy of a thousand stars, I finally understand why: I am no longer the sole or even main tenant in my son's heart. My words no longer elicit any reaction, my assurances no longer abate his torments, and my love no longer rescues him from the abyss of heartbreak. For eighty I have been naïve enough to think that I would keep him forever, and yet during this time he slipped so gradually away from me that I didn't notice it, until it came as a slap in the face when he was irrevocably beyond my reach. At the airport, my words fell silent on indifferent ears; my only useful function was to provide a mouthpiece for Bella's. Hers were the only ones that mattered, the only ones that could penetrate the walls of his heart. At that moment, when I gently replaced my love with Bella's, I relinquished my monopoly on my son's joy.

I close my eyes, and a cold, vacant Edward appears. _Edward, I love you so much._ Nothing. _Edward, I will always be there for you._ Nothing. _Edward, my son, come here, let me heal your wounds._ Nothing. For six months, I lived a lie and told myself that there was nothing I could do to bring my son back to life, but now, I can no longer escape from the glaring truth. There is a way; it is just extraordinarily painful for me. _Edward,_ I say now. _Bella loves you._ Behind my closed lids, Edward smiles.

* * *

As always, thank you for reading, and please review!


End file.
